A week ago Sunday, New York Yankee ace David Cone threw just the 16th perfect game in major-league history. Baseball experts say it may well have been the most perfect game ever pitched: only 88 pitches, 68 for strikes, not a single three-ball count to any batter. Most baseball analysts now say Cone -- who already has three World Series rings and a .647 career winning percentage -- should be a lock for the Hall of Fame.
THE SCRAPBOOK is also prepared to endorse Cone for the Hall. But not so much on account of the perfect game. We're impressed, instead, by what Cone did last Tuesday, at a New York City Hall ceremony in his honor. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani gave Cone a "Key to the City" award. And Cone then thanked the mayor, possible rival to Hillary Rodham You-Know-Who in next year's Senate campaign, as follows: "Mr. Mayor, I'd like to say, on behalf of all the Yankee players . . . how your sincerity as a Yankee fan really comes across. We see it. I mean, there's a lot of politicians that say they're baseball fans and put on the cap and --"
At this point, according to the New York Post, Cone's words were drowned out by cheers from an audience drawn exclusively, so far as THE SCRAPBOOK can tell, from the city's most honorable families.